4 Introduction. 



whither do you go ? From Lysias, son of Cephalus, 

 to take a walk outside the city, for I have been 

 sitting in the room since daybreak.'' Phsedrus inti- 

 mates that perhaps Socrates could not spare time to 

 join him in his walk, to which the philosopher re- 

 plies " What, man ! do you not think that, as Pindar 

 says, if I had not leisure I should make it, to hear 

 the result of your studies with Lysias ?" And he tells 

 him that he would not part him till he delivered the 

 speech with which Lysias had regaled him, and 

 which he was carrying in his mind, or probably under 

 his cloak, intending to study it as he walked. Here 

 they turn off the public road, and walk barefoot to 

 cool themselves in the edge of the Ilissus, towards a 

 lofty Plane tree which from a distance attracted their 

 attention. Socrates, who seldom left the city, now 

 apparently refreshed, says to his friend, " You have 

 found the way to cure me of my home-keeping pro- 

 pensities. As men lead cattle onwards by holding 

 food or fruit before their noses, so you lure me with 

 the discourse you have in your book ; and, for aught 

 I know, you will lead me round Attica, or wherever 

 you please. We have a pleasant retreat under this 

 wide-spreading tree ; shaded in by lovely shrubs, 

 this place is full of the fragrance of herbs, and truly 

 is most agreeable. 7 ' 



Were Ilissus' bank the inviting spot which imagi- 

 nation paints, we can't sit and converse there ; nor can 

 I, like Crassus or many of his contemporaries, enter- 

 tain friends as I might wish to do in a villa on the 



